I. Rye in the Countryside

Black bows, streaking winds, the rye

is pleasing to the eye. Beauty strikes me

by the countryside. The air is all but

still. Flies come and go; yet, time

stays at a standstill. I rode my bike across

the countryside; well, I rode on the back

of my grandfather’s moped, bumping up

and down as we traveled through that

patch of gravel road; with dust flying

past my ears; eyes closed, all I could hear

was the veer of electricity and the laughter

of his voice. So, it was yellow. It was summer

in the burdened rurality of China, with 

nothing left to lose. Rather, nothing I had

gained was worth losing. I, as a child,

wished for nothing more than the simple

company of my grandparents; a stay so

precious that it made the temporary elongate

its permanence; made my smile authentic.

Yet, it has been more than four years since

I visited the Rye in the Countryside, parted

by the big blue sea. Wistful as I am, a call 

away I make everyday, though nothing

could replace reality.

II. Gone Were the Beaches

Summer’s day wake-up; time

is wondrously spent waking up 

during these summer months,

where solace soothes the eyes.

O’ those beach days, gone were

they too soon; crowded crowds,

lingering lines—all piled up

about the Boardwalk. Pineapple

bathing suits, smoothies from 

vendors you trust at first sight.

Sand beneath one’s feet, rustling

into one’s shoes, entwined within

those fragments of seashells. Black

was it all. Heat radiated through

the sand, flowing deeply beneath 

the ground, where autumn had begun

to seep through, channeling a soft

Marshal of Wind, commanding a 

sudden start to the early weeks of 

September. The weather cools 

significantly; nature’s evanescent

summertime magic, now replaced 

by a feeble tarp of light, frigid as

it is. O’ the day cools. O’ the

night freezes. By soon, December

strikes one’s lips as chapped, one’s

skin as coarse, one’s eyes as hail.

So, gone were the beaches, buried

beneath the advent of time, advancing

only one way, that is, with the current

of time. North of Sun. South of

Cold. Gone were the beaches that

ol’ Summer’s tale had told.

III. The Way I Live Right Now

Trapped. In a box. Under a ceiling

that’s too old. Above wood that creaks

louder than an owl's screech. Left alone,

above Neo-classical wood, left open

for longer than an hour’s peak, is the

modern typewriter that I use to write

my poems. Sensational. Snow’s onset

seems imminent. Storms a’ raging.

Temperatures dropping. Let me show

you what it’s like outside.

The grass is stiffened by the rigid frost that overlays it. 

The swing set that we’ve bought in ‘16 bleeds a tarp of brown.

Motionless, the pines erect themselves as pins in a bowling alley.

Tall. Very tall. Perhaps equalling the length of four buses lain vertically.

Nature’s best features are captured by curiosity—

for how come Queen Mab’s intuition strikes me while

I sleep?—picturing the orchard that I grew up with

waking alongside me in the fields.

Above my eyes. I close my eyes.

I see the pitch-black ceiling above me.

As this eternal rest carries through dawn,

dreams materialize of a friendly return to childhood,

basking in that summertime sunshine that 

Mom always promised me at the local park.

Closing my eyes, colors arise. Orange, blue,

green, white, and all of the other mish-mosh colors

that you would find during autumn.